This invention discloses an improvement on U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,684 which disclosed a method of performing the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of a composite structure using a FEA program, such as Algor FEMPRO. Now, in these programs, the solid, shell, or plate structure can be divided into discrete meshes by a powerful automeshing portion of the program. The program has three choices of meshing—Solid meshing (meshing of the Solid or core), Midplane meshing (meshing at the midplane) and Plate or Shell meshing (meshing of a surface). All of these choices require the material of the structure to be homogenous to produce a valid solution. However, a composite structure is made of at least two different materials and, therefore, is not homogenous. The thicker material or part of the composite (the matrix or the core) can be represented by discrete volumes, such as brick and tetrahedron elements, and the thinner parts (coatings or laminates) can be depicted by shell or plate elements. Composite structures are very complex to analyze. However, when the problem is broken into brick elements (discrete volumes) for the matrix core and plate or shell elements for the surface coating, the complex composite structure becomes easier to solve. This was the technique used in U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,684. Now, software, such as Algor, provides automeshing for either solid or plate and shell parts, but not in a combined form, such as a composite. Therefore, these programs could not provide a valid solution for a complex composite structure.